The Ultimate Page on Stupidity

This page is dedicated to
all of the stupid people in the world.

Sisyphus Understands!

HOME

Stupidity Terms

These were supposedly from a Washington Post reader submission word contest in which readers were asked to alter a word by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter and supply a new definition.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

~Author unknown

Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

~Author unknown

criminal stupidity: An act so moronic it defies explanation. Examples: The mother who put her 2-year old in a coin-operated washing machine. And the robbers who tried to yank the cover off an ATM machine by tying a rope to the bumper of their car (allowing the bank camera to photograph the license plate).

~ Janet LoFurno

New Quotes About Stupidity

"Stupid mistakes are made by others. We only make unavoidable errors."
- Anonymous

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."
- Confucius

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
- Bertrand Russell

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
- Bertrand Russell

"Stupid is as stupid does."
- Forrest Gump

"'Stupid as a man,' say the women: 'cowardly as a woman,' say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
- Thomas Szasz

"To be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
- Gustave Flaubert

"Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows."
- Bernard Devoto

"Unless one pretends to be stupid and deaf, it is difficult to be a mother-in-law or father-in-law."
- Chinese proverb

"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat."
- Oscar Wilde

"You even called me stupid in your verse, and I’m almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend."
- Franz Grillparzer

"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives."
- Oscar Wilde

"One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual."
- Thomas Mann

"The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them."
- Oscar Wilde

"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw

"We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already."
- G.C. Lichtenberg

"There are only two races on this planet-the intelligent and the stupid."
- John Fowles

"One must be a little foolish, if one does not want to be even more stupid."
- Michel de Montaigne

"I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid."
- P.J. O’Rourke

"Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be 'too clever by half.' The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters."
- John Major

"You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don’t think there’s anything man wasn’t meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn’t do."
- David Cronenberg

"There sure is a lot of stupidity and ignorance in the water in Norfolk (VA)."
- Anonymous

"He was so stupid that he couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel."
- Lyndon Johnson

"Normally when you get old you lose your mind and 'go dumb.' Well what happens if you are already stupid and have no mind to lose?"
- Marc Bush

Business Rule 1: "All business decisions can be explained by the WAS/WAE rationale: We Are Stupid or We Are Evil. Most decisions will not be just one or the other, but a blend of being stupidly evil or evilly stupid."
Corollary to Rule #1: "When in doubt, assume stupidity rather than evilness. Truly stupid people outnumber truly evil people by a wide margin -- how many stupid people do you know versus how many people like Adolph Hitler do you know?"
- TampaGeek's Undisputed Rules of Business

"Be careful to whom you distribute clues. The last thing anyone needs is a more effective idiot."
- Anonymous

"Knowledge grows linearly, stupidity exponentially."
- Malthus Law of Research

“The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.”
- Cole

“Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.”
- Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander
Sword of Truth series

“If you say something stupid and no one disagrees, then you know that you're the boss.”
- Philip Simborg
Regional V.P. Grubb & Ellis

“I'm not intending to imply insult or judgment here but I am curious to know in order to be able to respond to your posts in an appropriate manner, so please forgive what appears to be, but in fact is not intended as, an insulting question: Are you stupid?”
- Melinda Shore

“The man who is clever and industrious is suited to high staff appointments; use can be made of a man who is stupid and lazy; the man who is clever and lazy is suited for the highest command, he has the nerve to deal with all situations; but the man who is stupid and industrious is a danger and must be dismissed immediately.”
- Baron von Hammerstein-Equoard

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Caesar and Cleopatra

“You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.”
- Norman Juster

“Yeah, I've seen the face of evil - and it is a moron.”
- Anonymous police officer describing his career to a writer

“We don't catch crooks because we're so smart. We catch them because they're so stupid.”
- Murphy's Laws of Law Enforcement

“Infantry branch doesn’t have a monopoly on stupidity but it does have the ability to purify and concentrate it.”
- Former Infantry Officer

“I swear, if people get any dumber around here, we’re gonna have to start posting daily reminders to breathe!!”
- Sally Forth’s Boss

“There are stupid people everywhere. Every few days you're bound to run into one.”
- Bill Vannuys

"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."
- Sloan Wilson

“We should all carry clue beepers. Then if we were doing stupid things, people could dial us up on the street and warn us.”
- Sarah Trombley

“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.”
- Gamel Abdel Nasser

"Compared with Man, we have to admit that the insect does not display what
we can describe as intelligence. But don't feel too proud about that, because
where there is no intelligence, there is also no stupidity."
-Anonymous

“God must love stupid people; He made so many.”
-Anonymous

"I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid."
~P.J. O’Rourke

"Facts are stupid until brought into connection with some general law."
~ Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)
Swiss-US naturalist, geologist, teacher

"Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them."
~ Michael Levine (1954?-)
American writer & executive

"A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid."
~ Michel Montaigne (1533-1592)
French essayist

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
~ Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer

"I only require three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid."
~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
American writer, poet, journalist, satirist, humorist

"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea."
~ Percy Bridgman (1882-1961)
American physicist, philosopher, professor

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American transcendentalist philosopher, essayist & lecturer

"We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid."
~ Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995)
US anthologist, author, black activist

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
~ Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968)
American civil rights leader, clergyman

"It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you."
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
English physician & writer of Sherlock Holmes mysteries

"The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid."
~ Art Spander

"The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes and gaping mouth, that testified surprise."
~ John Dryden (1631-1700)
English poet, dramatist & critic

"Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever."
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
German philosopher

"To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity."
~ Magdeleine Sable (c. 1599-1678)
French patroness of letters

". . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness."
~ Karl Popper (1902-1994)
Austrian, philosopher, professor

"The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct."
~ Cicero (106-43 BC)
Roman orator, statesman, philosopher & writer

"There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others."
~ Jean de La Bruyere (1645-1696)
French philosopher

"If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life."
~ Robertson Davies (1913-1995)
Canadian writer

"The height of stupidity is most clearly demonstrated by the individual who ridicules something he knows nothing about."
~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
German-Swiss-American mathematical physicist

Sandy: "Boy, you must really think I'm stupid or something."
Jeff: "Ahh, no one would call you stupid, to your face."
~ Terry Garr
US movie actress
from as Sandy in Tootsie

"Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but incredible stupidity can usually be traced back to an organization."
~ Jon Bentley

"I tell people I'm too stupid to know what's impossible. I have ridiculously large dreams, and half the time they come true."
~ Debi Thomas
US & World figure skating champion, Olympic bronze medalist

"A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat."
~ P.J. O'Rourke (1947-)
American humorist & journalist

"Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid."
~ John Dewey (1859-1952)
American philosopher & educator

"This is a picture of the British High Command at the beginning of World War I. These aren't evil men — some of them aren't even stupid."
~ G. Dyer

"Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
German philosopher

"No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time — but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming."
~ Charles Erwin Wilson (1890-1961)
American engineer & industrialist

"These are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night."
~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
American physician, writer & poet

"Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid."
~ Jules Feiffer (1929-)
US cartoonist-satirist,1986 Pulitzer Prize-editorial cartooning

"What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning."
~ Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
English biologist, writer & lecturer

"It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity."
~ P.D. James

"People are always talking about tradition, but they forget we have a tradition of a few hundred years of nonsense and stupidity, that there is a tradition of idiocy, incompetence and crudity."
~ Hugo Demartini

"Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom."
~ E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
English novelist

"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing."
~ Gamel Abdel Nasser

"The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fears subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from."
~ Joanna Baillie (1762-1851)
Scottish dramatist & poet

"One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that. But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice which stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice."
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Austrian engineer & philosopher

"Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others . . . And your very flesh shall be a great poem."
~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
American poet & journalist

"In a letter from Bath to her sister, Cassandra, one senses her frustration at her sheltered existence, Tuesday, 12 May 1801. Another stupid party . . . with six people to look on, and talk nonsense to each other."
~ Jane Austen (1775-1817)
English novelist

"I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity."
~ Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish philosopher

"Worry is evidence of an ill-controlled brain; it is merely a stupid waste of time in unpleasantness. If men and women practiced mental calisthenics as they do physical calisthenics, they would purge their brains of this foolishness."
~ Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)
English novelist

"Just as the results of inebriety are most painful to the habitually sober, and just as the greatest saints have often been the greatest sinners, so, when the first class brain does something stupid, the stupidity of that occasion is colossal."
~ Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)
English statesman

"If we had a keen vision and feeling it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity."
~ George Eliot (1819-1880)
English novelist

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views . . . which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
~ Unknown
from Doctor Who

"I'm not intending to imply insult or judgment here but I am curious to know in order to be able to respond to your posts in an appropriate manner, so please forgive what appears to be, but in fact is not intended as, an insulting question: Are you stupid?"
~ Melinda Shore

"The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Führer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity."
~ Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Swiss psychiatrist

"If you happen to meet a crocodile, don't stick your head in its mouth. Every now and then, and who knows the reason, people ignore this advice, which is sad because they die, but very stupid because they were warned. They had a choice. The moral of the story is this — you can't afford to be stupid. There are crocodiles."
~ Unknown
from Press Gang

"The man who is clever and industrious is suited to high staff appointments; use can be made of a man who is stupid and lazy; the man who is clever and lazy is suited for the highest command, he has the nerve to deal with all situations; but the man who is stupid and industrious is a danger and must be dismissed immediately."
~ Baron von Hammerstein-Equoard

"I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not. It tooks me years to find out. . . ."
~ J. D. Salinger
from The Catcher in the Rye

"The man who is worthy of being "a leader of men" will never complain about the stupidity of his helpers, the ingratitude of mankind nor the in appreciation of the public. These are all a part of the great game of life. To meet them and overcome them and not to go down before them in disgust, discouragement or defeat—that is the final proof of power."
~ William J. H. Boetcker

"Whether he likes it or not, [he] cannot remain incognito forever. He has outraged too many wise men and pleased too many fools to hide behind his too-appropriate order to assume leadership of the forces of stupidity he has marshaled, or his enemies will unmask him in order to better understand the disease that has produced such a warped and twisted mind."
~ Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

"Ender stepped under the water and rinsed himself, took the sweat of combat and let it run down the drain. All gone, except they recycled it and we'll be drinking Bonzo's blood water in the morning. All the life gone out of it, but his blood just the same, his blood and my sweat, washed down in their stupidity or cruelty or whatever it was that made them let it happen."
~ Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

"The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make. God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal — there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause."
~ Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

"What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, but because you think I should be. I look back on the way I was. A young, stupid kid that committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left."
~ Morgan Freeman's character, Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" as he sat before the Parole Board and was asked if he felt he was rehabilitated enough to rejoin society. (Thanks to A.L. for the update.)

"Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own."
~ Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet

Quotes About Stupidity

“You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.”
- Scott Raymond Adams (1957-Present)
American cartoonist, creator of "Dilbert" in 1989
from The Dilbert Future.

“No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot.
-Scott Adams (1957-Present)
The Dilbert Principle

“If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?”
-Scott Adams (1957-Present)

“A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”
- Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English writer, statesman, publisher, essayist & poet

“In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity.”
-Konrad Adenauer

“Facts are stupid until brought into connection with some general law.”
- Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)
Swiss-US naturalist, geologist, teacher

“Ignorance is a right! Education is eroding one of the few democratic freedoms remaining to us.”
-Christopher Andrea

“[W]hen people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
-Isaac Asimov

“Philadelphia Phillies baseball star Mike Schmidt grew up in a sleepy, tree-lined, middle-class neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio. At the age of five he climbed a tree in his backyard and grabbed a 4000-volt power line. Knocked unconscious by the shock, he fell limp to the ground. The impact restarted his heart. "I've never thought that I was given a second chance because I was supposed to do something great in my life," Schmidt says. "But I've looked back and wondered why that stupid little kid didn't die. Maybe that's the reason I've always worked to hard, because I don't want to think that I wasted that chance.”
(Sometimes the stupid are lucky.)
- Phil Axelrod

“The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fears subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.”
- Joanna Baillie (1762-1851)
Scottish dramatist & poet

“Just as the results of inebriety are most painful to the habitually sober, and just as the greatest saints have often been the greatest sinners, so, when the first class brain does something stupid, the stupidity of that occasion is colossal.”
- Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)
English statesman

“We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.”
- Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995)
US anthologist, author, black activist

“The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.”
-Josh Billings

“The man who is worthy of being "a leader of men" will never complain about the stupidity of his helpers, the ingratitude of mankind nor the inappreciation of the public. These are all a part of the great game of life. To meet them and overcome them and not to go down before them in disgust, discouragement or defeat—that is the final proof of power.”
- William J. H. Boetcker

“Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.”
-Jean de la Bruyere (1645-1696)

“There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others.”
- Jean de La Bruyere (1645-1696)
French philosopher & writer
from The Theophrastus of France, 1688.

“To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.”
-Sophy Burnham

"A lot of beautiful people are stupid. There's a tremendous amount of idiots who look so good. It's frightening."
- Dean Cain

“Whether he likes it or not, [he] cannot remain incognito forever. He has outraged too many wise men and pleased too many fools to hide behind his too-appropriate order to assume leadership of the forces of stupidity he has marshalled, or his enemies will unmask him in order to better understand the disease that has produced such a warped and twisted mind.”
- Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

“Ender stepped under the water and rinsed himself, took the sweat of combat and let it run down the drain. All gone, except they recycled it and we'll be drinking Bonzo's blood water in the morning. All the life gone out of it, but his blood just the same, his blood and my sweat, washed down in their stupidity or cruelty or whatever it was that made them let it happen.”
- Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

“The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make. God, our genes, our environment, or some stupid programmer keying in code at an ancient terminal — there's no way free will can ever exist if we as individuals are the result of some external cause.”
- Orson Scott Card
American science fiction writer

“To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
-Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
English writer

“The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid. There is no big man who has not felt small. Some men never feel small; but these are the few men who are.”
- Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
English writer

“The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.”
- Cicero (106-43 BC)
Roman orator, statesman, philosopher & writer

"There is no cure for stupid wives and willful children."
- Chinese proverb

"Unless one pretends to be stupid and deaf, it is difficult to be a mother-in-law or father-in-law."
- Chinese proverb

"A clever wife often sleeps with a stupid husband."
- Chinese proverb

"It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
-Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain)

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”
-Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain)

“There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.”
- Charles Caleb Colton

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."
- Confucius

“I will not teach a man who is not anxious to learn, and will not explain to one who is not trying to make things clear to himself.”
- Confucius

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
- Rich Cook

“One part of knowledge consists in being ignorant of such things as are not worthy to be known.”
- Crates

"You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don’t think there’s anything man wasn’t meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn’t do."
- David Cronenberg

“Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.”
- Frank Dane

“Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward.”
- Bill Davidsen

“There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.”
- Robertson Davies

“If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life.”
- Robertson Davies (1913-1995)
Canadian writer

“People are always talking about tradition, but they forget we have a tradition of a few hundred years of nonsense and stupidity, that there is a tradition of idiocy, incompetence and crudity.”
- Hugo Demartini

“Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.”
- Democritus

"Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows."
- Bernard Devoto

“Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.”
- John Dewey (1859-1952)
American philosopher & educator

“Genuine ignorance is... profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.”
- John Dewey

“Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
- Nick Diamos

“It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.”
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
English physician & writer of Sherlock Holmes mysteries
from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes," 1894.

“The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.”
- John Dryden (1631-1700)
English poet, dramatist & critic
from Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 107.

“This is a picture of the British High Command at the beginning of World War I. These aren't evil men — some of them aren't even stupid.”
- G. Dyer

“A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy: "He is too stupid to learn." That boy was Thomas A. Edison.”
- Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
American inventor & industrialist

“A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.”
- Bob Edwards

“With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon."
- Albert Einstein

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Soldier, statesman, President

“If we had a keen vision and feeling it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”
- George Eliot (1819-1880)
English novelist, pen name of Mary Ann Evans
from Middlemarch, bk. 2, ch. 20, 1872.

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
- Euripides (484 BC-406 BC)
The Bacchae, circa 407 B.C.

“The question now is: Can we understand our stupidity? This is a test of intellect, not of character.”
- John King Fairbank

“Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid.”
- Jules Feiffer (1929-)
US cartoonist-satirist, 1986 Pulitzer Prize-editorial cartooning

“The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity and until they do (and find the cure) all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.”
- Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

Stupidity of Humans. There are two kinds of stupid people out there. There are the truly stupid, who are very unlikely to have the intelligence to make it to the Internet anyway, and the "Situationally Stupid", who are usually smart people who look for any chance to injure themselves or others just enough to blame someone else and take legal action in hopes of easy money.
We are not responsible for stupidity in either case.
- Flash Boredom's Planet 9
(http://www.fbp9.com/disclaimer.html)

"To be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

“The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.”
- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

“The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.”
- Malcolm Forbes

“Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom.”
- E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
English novelist
from Aspects of the Novel, ch. 5, "The Plot," 1927.

"There are only two races on this planet-the intelligent and the stupid."
- John Fowles

“A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.”
- Anatole France
French novelist, satirist, playwright, poet

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.”
- Thomas Fuller

“Sandy: Boy, you must really think I'm stupid or something. Jeff: Ahh, no one would call you stupid, to your face.”
- Terry Garr
US movie actress
from as Sandy in Tootsie

“The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
- Emma Goldman

“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.”
- Terry Goodkind
Fantasy author

“Man has made use of his intelligence, he invented stupidity.”
- Remy de Gourmont

"You even called me stupid in your verse, and I’m almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend."
-Franz Grillparzer

"Stupid is as stupid does."
- Forrest Gump

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
- Hanlon's Razor

“The fact is that there are few more "popular" subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune; and there are probably more people really interested in mathematics than in music. Appearances may suggest the contrary, but there are easy explanations. Music can be used to stimulate mass emotion, while mathematics cannot; and musical incapacity is recognized (no doubt rightly) as mildly discreditable, whereas most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity.”
- Godfrey H. Hardy (1877-1947)
English mathematician
from A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.

“Love is a common bond that occurs between two people when each thinks they have something to gain through the other's stupidity.”
- Johnny Hart
B.C. Comic strip

“The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.”
- Hartley's First Law

“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.”
- Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

“There are more fools in the world than there are people.”
- Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

“Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”
- Robert Heinlein
Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, from "Time Enough for Love"

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
- Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)
American science fiction writer
from Time Enough for Love, Lazarus Long

“I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense.... And if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.”
- Katherine Hepburn (1909-Unk)
Actress

"Between a fellow who is stupid and honest and one who is smart and crooked, I will take the first. I won’t get much out of him, but with that other guy I can’t keep what I’ve got."
- General Lewis B. Hershey
Director, Selective Service System

“Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you'll know. It's the most horrifying, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature in this world.”
- Werner Herzog

“Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”
- Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
American writer & printer

“Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.”
- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

“What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning.”
- Homas Huxley (1825-1895)
English biologist, writer & lecturer

“It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.”
- P.D. James

“Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature." (Of Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788), actor, lecturer, and author.)
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
English poet, critic, lexicographer
from Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.

“A person is smart; People are dumb, panicky, stupid animals.”
- Tommy Lee Jones
from the movie "Men in Black"

“The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Führer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.”
- Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Swiss psychiatrist, student of Freud & founder analytic psychology

“You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.”
- Norman Juster

“Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.”
- Wendy Kaminer

“You can be sincere and still be stupid.”
- Charles F. Kettering

“I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.”
- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish philosopher
from PREFACES

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
from Strength to Love, 1963

“I'd give Charles Darwin videotapes of "Geraldo," "Beavis and Butt-head," and the "McLaughlin Group." I would be interested in seeing if he still believes in evolution. (Asked what he'd give another author, living or dead, if he could.)
- Dean Kootz
Horror author

"The only good is knowledge, the only evil is ignorance."
- Diogenes Laertius
3rd century CE

“Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.”
- Edwin Land (1909-1991)

“Every creative act is a sudden cessation of stupidity.”
- Edwin Land (1909-1991)
American inventor of Polaroid Camera while freshman at Harvard

“It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.”
- Anton Szandor LaVey

“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
- Frank Leahy
Notre Dame football coach
from Look magazine January 10, 1955

“It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.”
- Sam Levenson

“It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it.”
- Sam Levenson

“Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don't compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest.”
- Sam Levenson (1911-1980)
Humorist

“Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.”
- Michael Levine (1954?-)
American writer & executive
from Lessons at the Halfway Point

"We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already."
- G.C. Lichtenberg

“'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”
- Abraham Lincoln (attributed)

“I always think twice before I say something stupid.”
- Loesje International
Founded in Holland in 1983
from A poster from Loesje, an international poster organization with members all over the world.

"Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be 'too clever by half.' The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters."
- John Major

"One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual."
- Thomas Mann

“I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them.”
- Steve Martin (1945-Present)
Comedian, actor

“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”
- William G. McAdoo

“It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.”
- Mignon McLaughlin

“No one in this world, so far as I know- and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me- has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
-H.L. Mencken

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Philosopher, economist

“A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.”
- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
French essayist
from Essais

“Those who know, and know that they know, are wise. You may follow them. Those who know not, and know that they know not, are smart. You can teach them. Those who know not, and know not that they know not, are dumb. You must leave them.”
-Native American Proverb

“To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
German philosopher who delivered his philosophy "with a hammer"

"'Stupid as a man,' say the women: 'cowardly as a woman,' say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
German philosopher who delivered his philosophy "with a hammer"

"I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid."
- P.J. O’Rourke (1947-)
American humorist & journalist

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”
- P.J. O'Rourke (1947-)
American humorist & journalist

“A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.”
- P.J. O'Rourke (1947-)
American humorist & journalist

“I only require three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.”
- Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
American writer, poet, journalist, satirist, humorist

“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order.”
- Brian Pickrell

“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity?”
- Steve Polyak

“ … it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.”
- Karl Popper (1902-1994)
Austrian, philosopher, professor of logic & scientific method

“I used to think that I was stupid, and then I met philosophers.”
- Terry Pratchett (1948-Present)
Fantasy/satire author
From Small Gods, 1992

“Age and wisdom don't always go together, I've found. ... Some people just become stupid with more authority.”
- Terry Pratchett (1948-Present)
Fantasy/satire author
Thief of Time, 2001

“Look, the US is simply bigger, which means there's more of everything, including more morons. And because the morons shout, they tend to drown out the intelligent people, which the USA also has more of. Unless you believe the Hubble telescope was built by the audience of the Ricky Lake show, that is.”
- Terry Prachett (1948-Present)
Fantasy/satire author
Isis Publishing interview, Apr 2000

“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.”
- Robert Quillen

“The American people are very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.”
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?”
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in."
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)
The Illiterate Digest, 1924

“Some people are born in ignorance, while other strive their whole lives to achieve it!”
- C.J. Rose

“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
- Bertrand Russell
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.”
- Bertrand Russell
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
- Bertrand Russell
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer

“To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity.”
- Magdeleine Sable (c. 1599-1678)
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer
French patroness of letters
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer
from the Marquise Sablé’s work is in Maxims and Various Thoughts (Maximes et pensées diverses) 1678

“I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not. It took me years to find out. . . ”
- J.D. Salinger
British philosopher, mathematician & social reformer
from The Catcher in the Rye

“What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer

“Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
German philosopher

“The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer

“It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.”
- Seneca

“A man learns to skate by staggering about and making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
British playwright & novelist

"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
British playwright & novelist

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
British playwright & novelist
from Caesar and Cleopatra

“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.”
- Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
English poet, critic, author and novelist.

“I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business—oh how true.”
- Stephen Joshua Sondheim (1930-)
American composer & lyricist
from A Little Night Music

“Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.”
- Tobias Smollett

“The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.”
- Art Spander

“Books are hindrances to persisting stupidity.”
- Spanish Proverb

“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
- Herbert Spencer

“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Author
Thoughts on Various Subjects

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
- Thomas Szasz

“I tell people I'm too stupid to know what's impossible. I have ridiculously large dreams, and half the time they come true.”
- Debi Thomas
US & World figure skating champion, Olympic bronze medalist

“As if there were safety in stupidity alone.”
-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“I don’t know what makes you so stupid, but it really works.”
- Unknown

“Stupidity should be lethal.”
- Unknown

“Lecturers and preachers often wonder why they are disturbed in the middle of their discourse by their hearers rising up and going out. Over a century ago in the 1850's, this question was investigated by a national Council of Lecturers. Some thought the habit was due to natural infirmity; but that could not be, as it was frequently observed in able-bodied men and women. It was suggested that it might be owing to the lecture being stupid, but this idea was proved false by the council president, who remarked he had seen people go out at a lecture of his own. The conclusion was that the habit was owing to a congenital disproportion, the mind of the goer-out being able to contain only half a lecture—so he went when his mind was full.”
- Unknown (A common occurrence at the service academies.)

“Ignorance can be temporary. Stupidity is forever.”
- Unknown

“A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top.”
- Unknown

“With the whole world full of fools, there is none who thinks himself one, or even suspects it.”
- Unknown

“Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns.”
- Unknown

“If you aren't an idiot, you made a world-class effort at simulating one.”
- Unknown

“Your life is a monument to stupidity.”
- Unknown

“You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you.”
- Unknown

“On a good day, you're a half-wit.”
- Unknown

“The law is a rule to the fool, but a guide to the wise.”
- Unknown

“Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.”
- Unknown

“Fools rush in where fools have been before.”
- Unknown

“Light travels faster than sound. That's why most people seem bright until you hear them speak.”
- Unknown

“Life’s tough. It’s tougher if you are stupid.”
- Unknown

“It's not easy being stupid.... Some people have been practicing all their lives!”
- Unknown

“Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe.”
- Unknown

“Trying to change a woman's mind is as useless as whispering up a dead mule's ass.” (The ultimate in stupidity…)
- Unknown

“Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege.”
- Unknown

“I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed person!”
- Unknown

“Never argue with a fool, a passerby may not know which one it the fool.”
- Unknown

“Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.”
- Unknown

“God must love stupid people; he made so many.”
- Unknown

“The gene pool could use a little chlorine.”
- Unknown

“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.”
- Unknown

“Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.”
- Unknown

“We have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?”
- Unknown

“The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.”
- Unknown

“If you happen to meet a crocodile, don't stick your head in its mouth. Every now and then, and who knows the reason, people ignore this advice, which is sad because they die, but very stupid because they were warned. They had a choice. The moral of the story is this — you can't afford to be stupid. There are crocodiles.”
- Unknown
from Press Gang

“Computers are stupid — they do exactly what you tell them to do.”
- Unknown

“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views . . . which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering.”
- Unknown
from Doctor Who

“Stupidity is its own reward.”
- Unknown

“Stupidity is its own punishment.”
- Unknown

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
- Unknown

“I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.”
- Unknown

“Nothing is fool-proof to a talented fool.”
- Unknown

“If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?”
- Unknown

“Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference.”
- Unknown

“The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.”
- Unknown

“Stupidity is a boundless concept.”
- Unknown

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
- Unknown

“Ignorance is curable. Stupidity is permanent.”
- Unknown

“There's nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.”
- Unknown

“Never argue with idiots. The just drag you down to their level and then beat you with their experience.”
- Unknown

“Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.”
- Unknown

“In a world of pollution, profanity, adolescence, zits, broccoli, racism, ozone depletion, sexism, stupid people, and PMS, why the hell do people still tell me to have a nice day?”
- Unknown

“Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.”
- Stephen Vizinczey

“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.”
- Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)
Writer, philosopher

“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.”
- Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire)

“It was absolutely marvelous working for Wolfgang Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid.”
- Victor Weisskopf

“The only man who can change his mind is a man that's got one.”
- Edward Noyes Westcott

“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.”
- Alfred North Whitehead

“There is no sin except stupidity.”
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“Personally, I have a great admiration for stupidity.”
- Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband (Act II)

"The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“These are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night.”
- William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
American physician, writer & poet
from These, 1938, st. 1, 2

“No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time — but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming.”
- Charles Erwin Wilson (1890-1961)
American engineer & industrialist, president of General Motors Corp. 1941

"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."
- Sloan Wilson

“One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from that. But the difficulty is to remove the prejudice which stands in the way of doing this. It is not a stupid prejudice.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Austrian engineer & philosopher

“There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity.”
- Gene Wolfe

“If one person calls thee a donkey, pay him no mind. If two people call thee a donkey, get thee a saddle.”
- Yiddish Proverb

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”
- Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
Musician, singer, & songwriter

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe and it has a longer shelf life.”
- Frank Zappa
Musician, singer, & songwriter

“If I were asked to enumerate ten educational stupidities, the giving of grades would head the list... If I can't give a child a better reason for studying than a grade on a report card, I ought to lock my desk and go home and stay there.”
- Dorothy De Zouche

Idiot Flame

Taken from alt.chem many years ago.

Note: The name has been changed to protect the guilty.

At the rate you steal ideas and modify the concept to disguise your theft you will soon overtake unstable in the unoriginality stakes. You are an idiot, Bill Smith. You are an utterly f**k-witted idiot. You have oft been called an idiot and you have always failed to respond. Idiocy is the result of severe subnormal mental development. To give you some idea of what it means when you, Bill Smith, are called an idiot, those with IQ's in the range 51 to 70 are MORONS. Those poor souls with an IQ in the range of 26 to 50 are IMBECILES. An idiot has an IQ in the range of ZERO to 25.

Your mental incompetence is so profound, Bill Smith, that I doubt you even remotely comprehend the depth of the insult hurled at you when you are told that you are an idiot. It wouldn't be so bad if people called you a cretin, a moron or an imbecile, but they don't. They call you an idiot. At least imbeciles are in the second order of mental retardation, far above your level of idiocy and possessing a mental age of 6 or 7 years. Imbeciles are mentally feeble, stupid, silly and absurd. Goodness, not even regular cretins are as low on the retard scale as you, Bill Smith.

Idiots, such as you, Bill Smith, are incredibly wretched beings who are so deficient in nervous energy that they lie around like breathing blobs of jelly. Idiots have little or no motoneuron function to speak of and are incapable of even wafting away flies that land on their faces. Idiots have no bowel control whatsoever and at best communicate their discomfort with their soiled nappies by languidly moving their heads from side to side and maybe uttering the occasional grunt. Idiots, such as yourself, Bill Smith, are spoon-fed like 8 month old babies with sloppy, half-chewed, over-cooked vegetables for fear they may choke. Indeed, idiots are mostly incapable of chewing. Idiots have no speech capacity and your Usenet posts provide empirical evidence of your idiocy in this regard. It is true, Bill Smith, that you are an idiot. An idiot, Bill Smith, a profoundly retarded and feebleminded person with a mental age not exceeding that of a three year old child. You need complete custodial care.

Stupid People Should Wear Signs

(Note: This should be a law!)

Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, "I'm Stupid."

That way you wouldn't rely on them, would you? You wouldn't ask them
anything.

It would be like, "Excuse me...oops...never mind, didn't see your sign."

Comedian Bill Engvall

A Recent Stupidity Flame in sci.chem

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid Uncle Al is. I mean rock-hard stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. Surface of Venus under 80 atmospheres of red hot carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid vapor dehydrated for 300 million years rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different sensorium of stupid. Uncle Al is trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid so collapsed upon itself that it is within its own Schwarzschild radius. Black hole stupid. Stupid gotten so dense and massive that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Uncle Al emits more stupid/second than our entire galaxy otherwise emits stupid/year. Quasar stupid. Nothing else in the universe can be this stupid. Uncle Al is an oozingly putrescent primordial fragment from the original Big Bang of Stupid, a pure essence of stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that define maximally extrapolated hypergeometric n-dimensional backgroundless stupid as we can imagine it. Uncle Al is Planck stupid, quantum foam of stupid, a vacuum decay of stupid, a grand unified theory of stupid. Uncle Al is the epiphany of stupid. Uncle Al is stooopid. Uncle Al is a swine. Uncle Al is a vulgar little maggot. Uncle Al is a worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas, Uncle Al couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. Uncle Al is a canker, an ulcerous sore that won't go away. I would rather watch Affirmative Action lawyers suck-start Harleys with their bungholes than suffer the troll abominations of Uncle Al.

A Stupid Person's Guide to Life

Don't throw a brick straight up.

Don't take naps in the road.

If you ever meet the President, don't offer him the surprise gift of a firearm by whipping it suddenly out of your coat pocket.

Walk around toxic waste dumps, not through them.

If you want to pound on the radiator to tell the landlord to turn up the heat, don't do it with your head.

Your body has the correct number of holes in it. Don't make any more.

Don't microwave yourself.

Don't stick body parts into electrical outlets.

Shovels are for digging holes in the ground, not the floor of your house.

When using an acetylene torch, don't feel the flame to see if it's sufficiently hot.

Walking barefoot in the sand is good. Walking barefoot on a cactus is bad.

If you're on a ball field and someone shouts "Heads up!" don't actually raise your head up. Cover it with your arms and duck.

Don't tie yourself to an airplane propeller.

No matter how tempting it is to be one with nature, stay on the outside of all fences at the zoo.

When sticking thumb tacks into bulletin boards, press on the flat end.